3 Game-Changing Skills for Success in Real Estate & Business Brokerage

In commercial real estate and business brokerage, it’s easy to think numbers are everything… But in my experience, the most successful professionals are those who master the human side of the business.

Here are the 3 game-changing soft skills you need to succeed:

1️⃣ Emotional Fitness – Stay composed, connect deeply, and build trust
2️⃣ Turning Conflicts into Opportunities – Navigate disagreements without damaging relationships
3️⃣ 360° Communication – From cold calls to boardrooms, you must present with clarity and impact

📽️ I break these down with real stories and lessons in my latest clip. Listen to it and let me know your thoughts.

Want help developing these skills? Our coaching, workshops, and trainings are designed to elevate your influence and success.

#LeadershipDevelopment #SoftSkills #CommercialRealEstate #BusinessBrokerage #DrAZ #AtoZInstitute #EmotionalIntelligence #CommunicationSkills #ConflictResolution #PitchLikeAPro

Transcript

00:00:00:21 - 00:00:33:48
Dr. AZ
In whichever industry you may be, today, I'm going to share with you three qualities that you should have to be successful. I have educational and work experience with so many industries. Recently, I have joined also two new industries- commercial real estate and business brokerage. What I have learned is that all of the pros, the successful leaders, that I have worked with and communicated with, they have these three qualities that you want to have.

00:00:33:59 - 00:01:10:49
Dr. AZ
Let's start with the first one, which is emotional fitness. I remember my first talk was someone who was trying to help me. Within the commercial real estate industry. This person flat told me that throw out your emotions. He actually gave me some comparison between residential real estate and commercial real estate. He told me, of course, legitimately, that if somebody is selling a residential property, they have lived there for decades.

00:01:11:23 - 00:01:42:01
Dr. AZ
They have a lot of history and a lot of emotional attachment with that property. The same thing if you if you are buying a residential property. You have emotional attachment to it. You're going to live in that house for decades, at least for a few years, and therefore you are emotionally involved. But he warns me when it comes to commercial real estate and businesses, the most important thing is the number.

00:01:43:29 - 00:02:15:20
Dr. AZ
He emphasized if the numbers work, investors are willing to invest with you. Lenders are okay to give you money, even if you don't have history, credit history, if they don't like you. If they like the number, the deal works for them. They are okay. Initially, I believed in that, but the more I worked with other commercial real estate and business brokers, the more I could see that the successful ones,

00:02:15:45 - 00:02:44:28
Dr. AZ
yes, they know the numbers. They work with deals that give sense to their clients, but they don't throw out their emotions. They are emotionally fit. Here are a couple of things you need to know. We humans are emotional beings. We don't need to be emotional. But we need to acknowledge that we have emotions and our clients and the professionals who are working with us have emotions.

00:02:44:48 - 00:03:08:01
Dr. AZ
And the first thing we need to do is to connect with people at emotional level. Many people try to connect at intellectual level. That may work for the numbers, but at the end of the day, what you want to do is you want to emotionally connect with the people that you serve, that require, first of all, you to understand the dominant emotions that you manifest.

00:03:08:03 - 00:03:36:33
Dr. AZ
We all have different emotions that dominate us. Some of us maybe we are. We're very quick to be angry, mad, irritated. For some of us, we may be quick to be sad, depressed, or anxious. We need to know the dominant emotions that govern us. If we don't know what emotions that are governing us, it's very hard for us to regulate these emotions.

00:03:36:35 - 00:04:03:42
Dr. AZ
The second thing you should do is to understand the emotions of your clients. One thing I will tell you is that different people have different emotions that govern them, and your responsibility is not always to swing between different emotions of your clients. What I'm saying is emotional fitness, which means you understand from where they are coming from and you adjust.

00:04:03:57 - 00:04:27:00
Dr. AZ
For example, if they are too angry, you don't need to be angry, but you give them space and you understand that they are angry and you try your best to make sure that you calm down the situation. You don't want to go toe to toe with them and aggravate the situation. Let's say that they are anxious and depressed.

00:04:27:00 - 00:04:49:07
Dr. AZ
It doesn't mean that you stay in that anxious and depressed situation to connect with them emotionally. You give them space. You don't over excite them because they are not in that mood. You try your best to create a very safe environment where they kind of still talk to you and work with you, even if they don't feel doing it.

00:04:50:02 - 00:05:29:22
Dr. AZ
The second skillset you need to have is handling disagreements. Disagreement happens everywhere except in the graveyards. The key thing you want to know is how do you handle conflicts? Disagreements. Especially in commercial real estate, in business sales the stake is high. Thousands, maybe millions of dollars are involved. In this kind of situations, what should you do? You should have the ability to handle conflicts, which means you, first of all, want to know your conflict mode.

00:05:29:47 - 00:05:57:23
Dr. AZ
Remember that when conflict happens, you may have preferences to handle that conflict. Some of us we avoid, some of us, we go out and compete well, for some of us, we quickly give up and try to find a win win situation. For some of us, we stay and collaborate. But all of these approaches, responses, to disagreement may not be right

00:05:57:23 - 00:06:27:46
Dr. AZ
and all the time and with all your clients. You want to know what's best Based on these three things: One With whom are you dealing with? Second, what is the situation? Third, the timing. Depending on these three factors, you will determine, okay, I know I normally avoid when I am in conflict with people, but in this situation I really want to collaborate or I need to give and take and quickly compromise.

00:06:28:30 - 00:06:58:40
Dr. AZ
Whatever works for you, you will decide based on that situation. Another thing I want to mention when it comes to conflict is your goal in that situation is not just to understand your your your conflict response method and preferences, but also the preferences of your class. I know it's very hard if you just met a client, you may not know how they respond to conflict.

00:06:58:41 - 00:07:28:26
Dr. AZ
You are in conflict with them. Try to figure out how they prefer to to to respond. If you know that it helps you a lot. Why? Because sometimes, I remember actually, I can give you an example. I was working with someone and this person. Yeah, it was actually before I even know about how to handle disagreements and conflicts and this person understood that my preference back then was avoiding.

00:07:28:58 - 00:07:56:51
Dr. AZ
And I remember when he was working with me, when we are in conflict, he always reminds me that, you know, I know it's easy, you want to avoid. But look, this situation doesn't warrant you to avoid. I gonna promise you that our relationship will be affected. I want to. I want to work with you. This one requires us to work together.

00:07:56:51 - 00:08:31:37
Dr. AZ
Please don't avoid me. The fact that this person mentioned that I prefer to avoid acknowledging my preference was very helpful. Because I was conscious that I'm avoiding. Now, I have to decide how to respond. As you work with your clients, if you realize that they always compete or avoid or quickly compromise, you can help them get awareness about what's happening.

00:08:31:53 - 00:09:20:51
Dr. AZ
You could stop them and tell them that, look, I see that whenever we are in disagree, whenever we are in conflict, you tend to do this. You're not judging them, but you are creating that awareness for them. Telling them that this is how you respond, this situation, I think, warrants for us to handle it this way and resolve it. Because at the end of the day, our success as any professional is dependent on our ability to handle disagreements. Because disagreement happens, and our ability to resolve disagreements quickly without damaging relationships is key to our success, especially if you are an agent, broker and a professional working with these professionals, buyers, sellers and investors.

00:09:21:07 - 00:09:54:20
Dr. AZ
The third and the final thing that's key to success in this industry is is communication. I'm talking about 360 communications. Your ability to communicate with your clients in writing and one on one talks and also in your presentations as you present your pitch, your your deals and so on and so forth. One thing that is very important to understand is that we all have different communication styles.

00:09:54:57 - 00:10:23:05
Dr. AZ
Understanding the communication styles of our clients is very important. For example, your client may prefer to communicate with you via phone or in person, but you prefer to communicate via email. You need to understand that and adjust with your client. I remember I had a client and this client was very nice and looked very interested to work with me and we chatted and we agreed, okay, let's let's move forward.

00:10:23:24 - 00:10:47:04
Dr. AZ
And then I said, I will send an email. No response. I was making call calls, no response. And then I decided to just stop by at his office. Guess what? When I reached there, he was so happy to see me. But I was like wondering what happened to him. He was interested in the deal and he wanted to buy this stuff, but he's not responding to me.

00:10:47:04 - 00:11:08:16
Dr. AZ
I could have judged and I could have decided, You know what? He's not interested any more. I could have walked away. No. I asked in the middle of our conversation, seeing him he was happy to see me. I asked, Did you get my email? Did you get my phone calls? He told me, No, you know, I don't check my emails.

00:11:08:16 - 00:11:33:23
Dr. AZ
I don't check my phones. I'm glad you're here. We need to understand... You could ask them. By the way, how would you prefer to communicate with me? Another aspect of communication I want to emphasize is presentation skills. I have seen so many great pitches. They have great products, deals behind, but the way they pitch it is not delivering results.

00:11:33:37 - 00:12:14:35
Dr. AZ
But the pros, the successful ones, they know how to communicate on the stage or in front of the camera. Think about this If you are selling a commercial real estate or business, or if you are seeking investors to invest into your deals, you're asking a lot. You may have like ten or 20 minutes. Within those minutes you have to be able to, first of all, create demand, need, sense of urgency, and you want them to trust you and open their wallets and invest with you or buy or sell.

00:12:16:05 - 00:12:56:38
Dr. AZ
However, when you are in that kind of time sensitive situation and if they have any doubts, they may not pull the trigger, which requires you to communicate at a higher level. You need to preemptively eliminate any doubt, any objections that may have. As you can see, communicating on the stage in, front of the camera, asking people to invest with you, sell or buy these thousands and millions of dollars properties and businesses requires your ability to communicate effectively, not just be okay in your communication explaining the deals.

00:12:57:01 - 00:13:23:38
Dr. AZ
Remember, emotions are involved if they are not convincing, if they don't trust you, if they don't think that this is a no brainer deal, they're not opening their wallets and investing in you. That requires you to have the ability to communicate, present successfully. In conclusion, in whichever industry you may be. But today I focused on commercial real estate and business brokerage.

00:13:23:44 - 00:13:55:30
Dr. AZ
But in whichever investor you may be, you want to develop a lot of skillsets. But I focused on three top skill sets and qualities that you should have. The first one is your ability to connect with your clients, the people that you work with at emotional level, your ability to have emotional fitness. The second thing we talked about is your ability to deal with disagreements to turn the conflicts into opportunities without damaging the relationship.

00:13:55:30 - 00:14:18:11
Dr. AZ
And the third thing that we talked about is your ability to communicate 360. If you work on these skill sets, you have a chance to be successful in this industry. If you want to work with us to help you in one or all of these skill sets and qualities, we have different programs: One on one coaching, group poaching, webinars, workshops.

00:14:18:24 - 00:14:42:01
Dr. AZ
We want to work with you and your team as you develop these skill sets. Our programs, they have assessments. We don't just design a program for you, you and your team. You're going to take assessment, there are appropriate assessments, and then we work with you to design the right program that fits your needs and goals. Hope to hear from you.

00:14:42:17 - 00:15:19:37
Dr. AZ
Let me turn my camera and show you around. Such a beautiful place, a beautiful morning, a little bit hot. As you can see, it’s Tampa Riverwalk. Beautiful! You could be able to see how awesome this place is. All right. Enjoy the rest of the day.